The Guardian
March 1, 2007
Five years ago this week, across the Indian
state of Gujarat, the stormtroopers of the Hindu
right, decked in saffron sashes and armed with
swords, tridents, sledgehammers and liquid gas
cylinders, launched a pogrom against the local
Muslim population. They looted and torched Muslim-owned
businesses, assaulted and murdered Muslims,
and gang-raped and mutilated Muslim women. By
the time the violence spluttered to a halt,
about 2,500 Muslims had been killed and about
200,000 driven from their homes.
The pogrom was distinguished not only by its
ferocity and sadism (foetuses were ripped from
the bellies of pregnant women, old men bludgeoned
to death) but also by its meticulous advance
planning. The leaders used mobile phones to
coordinate the movement of an army of thousands
through densely populated areas, targeting Muslim
properties with the aid of computerised lists
and electoral rolls provided by state agencies.
Much of the violence unfolded with the full
collaboration of the police. In some cases,
police fired at Muslims seeking to flee the
mobs. When asked to help a group of girls being
raped on the roof of a building, police officers
demurred, explaining: "They have been given
24 hours to kill you." Subsequent investigations
confirmed that police knew in advance of the
pogrom and had been instructed not to interfere
with it.
Indian and global human rights organisations
have singled out Gujarat's chief minister, Narendra
Modi, of the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), as
the principal culprit. As a result of his alleged
complicity in mass murder, he was denied a visa
to the US and cannot visit Britain for fear
of arrest.
Yet Modi remains chief minister and has become
not only the BJP's most popular figurehead,
but also a poster boy for big business, foreign
and domestic. Gujarat, which contains 5% of
India's population, now boasts 18% of its investment
and 21% of its exports. At this year's Vibrant
Gujarat conclave, the showpiece of the BJP regime,
the great names of Indian capitalism - Ambani,
Birla, Tata - sang Modi's praises, echoed by
delegations from Singapore, Europe and the US.
Anxieties about dealing with a politician accused
of genocide have been allayed by the appeal
of Gujarat's corporation-friendly environment,
not least its labour laws, which give employers
hire-and-fire rights unique in India.
Five years on, Muslims in Gujarat still live
in fear. About 50,000 remain in refugee camps.
Most of the cases filed by victims of the violence
have never been investigated. Witnesses have
been intimidated. No more than a dozen low-level
culprits have been convicted. None of the major
conspirators has been brought before the courts.
The events of 2002 did not conform to the paradigm
of the war on terror, in which India was a prize
ally, so never achieved the infamy in the west
they deserved. An array of interests - in New
Delhi, London and Washington - is dedicated
to ensuring the atrocity is consigned to oblivion.
For them, the release of Parzania, a
feature film centred on the violence, is an
uncomfortable development. Despite dramatic
flaws, it accurately depicts the savagery of
the anti-Muslim violence, its planned, coordinated
character, and the complicity of the police
and the state government. Cinemas in Gujarat,
under pressure from the Hindu right, are refusing
to screen the film.
If and when Parzania reaches audiences here
and in the US, it will offer a necessary counter-tale
to the fashionable fable of the Indian neoliberal
miracle, exposing the brutality and bigotry
that have gone hand in hand with zooming growth
rates and hi-tech triumphalism.
? Mike Marqusee writes a column for the Hindu;
his most recent book is Wicked Messenger: Bob
Dylan and the 1960s.
